


The Colorado Springs Gate Keepers

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternative Universe - Football, Coaches, Crack, M/M, so much crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:32:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McKay wasn't exactly winning awards for nicest Head Coach ever. Since he was winning every other award out there, including two Superbowls in his first three years, the coaches took matters into their own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Colorado Springs Gate Keepers

"No, no, no, no! Are you—are you _trying_ to be this stupid? It is not complicated. My four year old _niece_ can do this, and I would much rather pay _her_ several million dollars, than a grown man who managed not only to fumble the ball, but complete misread the play!"

Safe in the locker room, John Sheppard wasn't the only one who winced. "Try stretching it out now," he said to Allman, watching carefully as the fullback extended his leg. Damn. Not only was there a wince from a guy who had a serious pain-threshold, but John could see the way the muscles twitched oddly. "Okay, stop. You need to soak that some more."

Allman, a red-haired giant roughly the size of a small barn, gave him a pathetic look better suited to a waif-like, nine year old girl. "Do I hafta, Doc?"

John glared. It was a good glare, the only really useful thing he retained from his years in the military. "Yes, you _hafta_. Go soak, then Katie'll wrap you up. Stay off of it for the evening. And don't call me Doc!" 

Damned medical school requirements.

Grumbling, Allman limped dramatically over to the pool. Baby. John took a few moments to clean up, surreptitiously studying the few remaining players. They'd come through without too many serious injuries, which Sheppard counted as a win. The Vikings were _huge_ this year.

Behind them, a door slammed open. Thirteen big, strong football players flinched simultaneously. "—afraid of breach of contract? Please. Maybe if you'd _read_ your contract, assuming you can read, which I am beginning to doubt, you'd know that attendance is _mandatory_ , or I am perfectly within my rights as Head Coach to make sure you are a _homeless man_ living on the streets for the next eight months."

Three gold teeth gleamed as Burr grinned nastily. "Yeah, right, man. The Carter's paid good money for my ass—"

"And if you do not perform, you will be _fired_ ," McKay hissed in a voice every single person knew to fear. When McKay turned that nice purple-y red that usually accompanied that voice, it wasn't only an aneurysm that was imminent. "Get out now, you overgrown prima donna, or I will have you escorted out."

 _That_ finally got through to Burr. He was a big man, bigger than most running backs, but big wasn't enough when Dex, the Defensive Head Coach, decided you'd gone a little too far. The way he had now, poking his head into the room with a soft, “Hey.”

Ronon Dex threw guys Burr's size around like kittens, something he made sure _every_ new employee, regardless of position, knew about their very first day.

McKay wasn't exactly winning awards for nicest Head Coach ever. Since he was winning every _other_ award out there, including two Superbowls in his first three years, the coaches took matters into their own hands.

Besides, John was pretty sure Dex liked McKay. He never took McKay's fishwife bitching seriously, which both men found novel and somehow rewarding.

Burr went through the usual posturing, as he backed out of the office, but since his audience was only slightly less contemptuous than the Odd Couple that was McKay and Dex—arms crossed over their chests, one radiating furious, manic anger while the other was as still and deadly as a blade—he threw his hands up in a tantrum not even _McKay_ could mirror, and flounced out.

A breath. Two. Three.

Dex rumbled something menacing at one of the kids scurrying around, trying to clean up without attracting notice, and the world started up again.

As noise and movement filled the locker room, John took advantage of the weird lull that always followed a McKay Moment to slip into the other man's office. "You okay?"

The room was dark and cool, smelling faintly musty from sweat but still clean and a little sweet, thanks to the incense burner Katie had set up for him at the beginning of the season. No one had any tolerance for any of that holistic, new-age crap, but Katie was working towards her psych degree and she had a quiet kind of determination that made even stubborn bastards like McKay back down. It only took four arguments before the incense was allowed into his office, and after a week everybody started noticing the difference.

Giving the coach a chance to cool off and calm down was _necessary,_ whatever the players said about how prissy it was.

Not that they said much. Most of them lived in sheer terror of McKay's outbursts, so anything that helped provide a reprieve was only nervously joked about. Quietly. When McKay wasn’t in the building. And if none of the guys in hearing distance would tattle.

"If this keeps up, it'll reach the press."

How they managed to keep some of their more... unorthodox methods out for three years implied a whole lot of things John didn't want to know about. He'd been Ops; he knew how useful bribery was, as well as a lot of other shady tactics. "I thought he was attending?"

McKay whirled fast enough that the persistently tense muscle in his neck spasmed under Sheppard's eyes. "Oh, he went," McKay hissed. That the pain didn't seem to register was a bad sign. "He even went on time! The first day, he slept. The second day, he played with that damned cellphone of his, calling his manager, probably to bitch about my unusual requirements and what a pansy I am. Fortunately, his manager is far too greedy to allow him to run his mouth, so we're safe there, although for how much longer I don't know."

Above them, the air conditioner cycled on again, letting blessedly clean air sift down over them like rain. It made the faintly sweet, faintly earthy scent grow stronger. 

John approached cautiously. He was getting pretty good at this, something Tom Carter was pretty happy about. Making sure his Superbowl-winning money-making Head Coach didn't stroke out was worth the price of John's salary. 

He'd just rounded the corner of McKay's always surprisingly neat, pristine desk when McKay himself turned to face him, eyes bugging painfully from his head.

Oh, this was bad.

"And on the _third day,"_ McKay hissed, "he decided to tell Miko exactly what he thought of a brilliant woman who happened to be approximately one-tenth his size. This included all the ways he could hurt her, all the ways he would make her _submit_ ," a gob of spittle narrowly missed Sheppard's cheek, "and just how much she'd enjoy it once she stopped with the stupid _numbers."_

Honestly, John wasn't sure which pissed McKay off more—the blatant sexual harassment or the attack on mathematics.

While McKay panted, Sheppard got him seated in his comfortable, specially designed chair, hands already seeking out familiar knots in his shoulder and neck. "Nice of him to tear up a ten-million dollar contract like that."

"I thought Miko was going to kill him," McKay commiserated sullenly. He could never stand up to one of John's massages, never. It was how they'd met, after all, something John regularly said thanks for. A dishonorably discharged vet didn't have a lot of options in life, but McKay—Rodney, then, before John had learned just who the Great McKay was—had only scoffed at most of the obstacles in John's life before setting about removing them.

Having a pretty serious bank roll and heels that could dig to the center of the earth made it easier than John had dreamed possible.

"Did she? Did she get Teyla to do it for her?"

Dr. Emmagen was John's personal Sports Medicine tutor, and the only reason he was really allowed in the locker room, no matter how many fits Rodney might throw. 

John wasn’t complaining. He’d made it clear, thanks to a month-long argument, that yes, he _would_ be taking classes, he _would_ be pulling his own weight, and whatever Rodney might want, if John had a job with the team, he’d have a job with the _team_. Rodney’s perks were extra.

For Rodney, he’d given up kind of gracefully. John figured the idea that someone wanted to be his own person while still being with Rodney wasn’t something that’d happened before, and some part of Rodney recognized that.

Whatever. John didn’t need to be a doctor, but having a marketable skill and a resume to reflect it wasn’t something he’d back down on.

A twitch, and a slow, soft gasp told John he'd finally gotten the worst of the knots to release. McKay slumped under his hands, not fighting, but not necessarily relaxing into it yet. "No,” he said, answering John’s almost-forgotten question about Teyla’s potential reaction, “though that took some fast-talking. I can't send him back to Miko."

John thought about the unique contract that had been shaped after McKay's first year as Head Coach. A necessary one, given how many players had thrown up their manicured hands. A few had even been summarily booted off the team, McKay somehow convincing Carter to pay the breach-of-contract fees.

Rumor said the he'd used blowjobs. John doubted it; Rodney didn't give really good ones, although his consistent enthusiasm made up for a lot, and Tom Carter was about as straight as a ruler.

Instead, John guessed that it was partly greed, partly admiration. That, and Sam was nearly as brilliant as McKay, if in a slightly different manner. She'd convinced her brother Rodney’s plans were worth it.

And they were.

"And if he isn't allowed to see her..."

"It's gobbled in legalese, but basically, Miko refusing to let him attend, on the grounds that her personal safety is threatened and the team doctor will personally break the kneecaps of whoever is doing the threatening, is the same as if _he_ refused to attend."

John had no idea how they’d pulled _that_ off, but he bet most managers hadn’t either. And that it’d stand up in court. "So we can get rid of him?"

It was a good question. Despite the attitude and the unfortunate habit of fumbling after a good run—Burr claimed he was in no way spiking the ball, but John had his doubts; so did most of the team—they _needed_ a running back with speed and agility. Burr had speed and agility.

What he _didn’t_ have was the ability to understand the Offensive Head’s plays, or good communication with the quarterback, Lorne. Those were as serious requirements as the physical ones, although they could be trained the way the physical sometimes couldn’t. McKay had opted for training, grudgingly, after searching the entire off-season and coming up with one rookie who’d managed to attract some attention despite a dismal placing in the draft.

They couldn’t trust a rookie, so the position had gone to Burr.

Carefully sitting up while John shifted to accommodate, Rodney looked through several papers without answering. John didn't mind; he'd gotten used to Rodney's fits and starts over the last two years, and was probably the only one who could differentiate between _quiet, I'm thinking!_ and _the hamster in my brain is still running, but it's completely off-wheel, help._

He was also the only one who could break Rodney out of the latter, but they didn't do that in public.

"Hey, is that Kerri?" John squinted, then flipped a light on. "The one that we just drafted from Ohio?"

“Lorne likes him, yes. I've been having them do some private work, when the two of them can spare some time. Dex has been watching."

Interesting that it was Dex and not O’Neill, but then, the Offensive Head was devious as hell when it came to riffing off of Rodney's core plays and knew how to get his players to work. He wasn't good at picking the right personnel to _do_ the work.

"And?"

Rodney let the papers flutter back onto the desk. "Oh, there, there," he murmured, arching into John’s touch. “God.”

"Rodney." Nobody growled at Rodney like that when he was being Head Coach McKay. John made sure to exercise the privilege frequently in private; Rodney reacted pretty well to being growled at, when he was in the right mood.

Apparently now was the right mood, because Rodney shivered under John's fingers. "Mm. Check out his worksheets."

Every single player, coach, and the bulk of the staff was required to attended mathematics courses. Every one. McKay's strategies were built off the kind of math that would've made John's old graduate professor weep—if the man didn't spontaneously orgasm—to see applied to football. This wasn't the x's and scattered o's of every other playbook—this was precision that worked like architecture. Fluid, _changeable_ architecture that would accommodate almost every style of football in the whole league.

They didn't win all the time. Translating from the page to the field was damned complicated, after all.

But they won the important games more often than they didn't.

John picked up the sheet Miko had probably lovingly carried over, studying it. Then he whistled. "Wow." The current culture of brain-dead players regularly sent McKay into fits of apoplexy, so finding someone who could handle math _this_ complicated was a treasure-trove of a find.

"Yeah. I know he's young, and probably not totally ready to do the physical translations of the math, but."

"But he's damned close," John agreed. "Special teams?"

"I told Zelenka yesterday. And that if he wanted to try some of the sneakier plays I know that bastard's working on..."

The rage from earlier had almost entirely disappeared. It was Rodney's saving grace, what made it tolerable to work with him, that the thunderstorm of his anger evaporated quickly, once he was distracted, and if he held a grudge, you usually deserved it.

Leaning down and twisting in a way that made his own back protest, John kissed Rodney's mouth. "You know, I think I heard Lorne mention that he wanted to work out a little later."

Rodney blinked at him, confused, until he remembered that at night, with only half the lights on, no one would be able to see into the coach's box at the little field all the Keepers worked out on during the season, when they couldn't use the stadium itself.

And he remembered what it was Rodney had first appreciated about John: not his hands, or the way he found Rodney so damned funny, or how smart he was underneath, or any of the other things Rodney always seemed so surprised to enjoy.

No, it was how _hot_ watching football made John.

"What, even after tonight's debacle?" Rodney gasped, but opened his mouth under the second kiss with a barely-there moan. "That wasn't football, that was a travesty!"

"There was a pigskin, McKay," John growled, straddling Rodney's hips, his own rocking upward even as his ass settled on Rodney's legs. "There was tackling. You screamed yourself hoarse. That's football."

Already hot and willing as his head was angled, body pushed into a slightly better position, Rodney said, "I don't understand you. This is incredibly distressing to me, because I normally understand everything, but right now I don't care. You'll blow me later, at the field, right?"

John laughed, rubbing until he got his cock pressing right over Rodney's. "Only if you're good."

Rodney responded by _heaving_ John up onto his desk and doing short, violent battle with John's zipper before finally yanking it down. His mouth was hot enough to scald, voracious and eager, pulling out every trick Rodney knew to make sure John came hard and came fast.

"Besides," John said, husky and low as he curled a hand around the back of Rodney's neck, "I'd rather you fucked me. That way, we can both watch."


End file.
